


Strangers

by muutant (tricyclops)



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-16
Updated: 2012-12-16
Packaged: 2017-11-21 07:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,693
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/595015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tricyclops/pseuds/muutant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on the Kinkmeme. </p><p>“Tell me a story about one of Anders' escapes from Kinloch Hold. Preferably from the point of view of Karl, but whoever works! It can be from his younger days or later years.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers

**Author's Note:**

> Younger Karl and Younger Anders. Anders’ first ‘escape’ from Karl’s POV. Sorry for the badly translated Old norse. This is supposed to be set when Anders’ is first taken from his home and brought to the tower. Already trying to escape before he even gets there.
> 
> I usually don’t write this fast so sorry if there is a bit of wibblyness.

\-----

This one's kicking and screaming, like if he got away he would have somewhere to go. Like he could get away. Like there was any hope.

Karl didn't have hope. He had a hard time believing hope ever even existed. Especially after all this time. Especially after years of letters and years of hoping and no one ever came. His hope had all run out.

Lanky limbs are thrashing and the boy's face is lost in a blur of too long blonde hair as the sound of clanking steel is coming up the docks. Their gauntlets look like they are digging into his soft flesh just to keep hold.

Five Templars. They needed five just to restrain the little blur of limbs and hair who couldn't be more than twelve years old.

"Shut up, you little fuck!" echoes from across the lake.

Not from a templar's mouth, but a mage's. A wirey fire-haired mage trying to read at the edge of the lake, Flo. Flo Amell. Her robes bunched around her waist with her toes barely touching the water. They don't get much time to be out of the tower. One hour once a month is all they get. One hour of sunlight, one hour to dip their toes in, never enough time to leisurely inch into the water. You either jump in or you just dip your feet in. One or the other.

Then there's a splash and the shrieking stops and bellowing shouts start right behind them.

The boy jumped in. He hasn't come back up. No one is going in to get him.

They are all just standing there in their cold, heavy armor that would sink them to the lake floor if they jumped. Shouting at the rippling water like he can hear them. Standing there like yelling at the water is going to save him. Doing their best to pretend like they even care if he lives. 

A drowning would be the highlight of their day.

And no one is going in to get him. He's drowning. A few mages turn their heads at the sudden lack of the boy's screeching. Eyebrows furrow, hands go over mouths, but no one jumps in after him. Like something deep inside is stopping them from saving him, something telling them that it's better this way. This is better than any life that is ahead of him. Then something sparks inside Karl. Doubt.

The sun is bright and Karl squeezes his eyes tight and takes a deep breath in. Then he jumps. His eyes open to murky green, his robes soaked in the frigid lake water weighing him down forcing him to put effort into every movement. He's underwater. It's freezing. He can't let this happen. He can't let that poor boy drown just because everyone is too afraid of his future, what he will become, what will happen to him, what he will be, what he will do.

Karl knows what can happen. He knows what mages are capable of, he's seen it, but letting a poor young mage die to prevent future 'what ifs' is not a solution to anything.

Bubbles rush out of the boy's mouth to show Karl where he is, to show Karl there is still air left within his lungs. He's not too late.

Diving lower he tugs his robes over his head and lets them float down into the depths of the lake. Now he moves with ease and reaches his arm out towards the boy, waiting for him to take his hand. Then Karl sees that the boy's eyes aren't open and his hands are cuffed behind him, the standard magebane cuffs, and he couldn't reach back even if he wanted to. He's barely moving. He's barely hanging onto life. Gathering him up in his arms the boy weighs practically nothing underwater. Pumping his legs under him, Karl cranes his neck to the light shining through the surface.

He hears himself cough at the air coming into his lungs when he reaches the surface, but not the boy. The lump of flesh and bones in his arms is limp and heavy now, alive, but just barely.

Metal hands come down from the edge of the dock and yank them up, the boy still in Karl's arms. For how young he must be, he's so tall and his limbs are jutting in every direction barely staying in Karl's hold.

There is no time for to catch his own breath because the boy still has none. His knees are digging into the splintered wood he lays his hands across the boy's chest and beckons the water out of his withered lungs and calls the air in.

Eyes peer out of slits of metal around him and the Templars almost move to stop his flow of magic until they realize there is nothing else to be done, no other way to bring him back now, and simply watch.

He's not a healer, but he knows enough. And he wants this enough, that his magic obeys. Water spills out the side of the boy's face, dripping over his cheek and then the coughing starts and then Karl can truly breathe again.

Between the coughing and the writhing the boy's eyes snap open. Amber brown. By the look in his eyes he must think he is in a dream, or a nightmare.

“It's ok. You're fine. Just breathe. Breathe.” Karl whispers to the boy, petting his hair, hoping he doesn't lash out in fear and confusion and force the Templar's blades onto him.

“Letta, heimta! Efla austrvegr jarn firar hrekja! Lika, okunnigr. Lika.” That explained it. The boy was from the Anderfels. Karl couldn't make much out of the harsh language, but he did understand the please the boy had uttered with such desperation.

“He's been shouting like this in that damned tongue for hours. No one can understand a word of it,” one of the Templars sneers.

“I can. A bit. He might know some Common. Did you ask?” they shake their heads, of course they didn't, “I'll try to ask.” The boy is sitting up, not thrashing, but not exactly sitting still.

“Ykkarr heim Anderfels?” Karl knows it's not right, but it's the best he can do with what little he's learned of the language. 

Whether or not he's said it right the boy nods, and there is a subtle change in the way the boy is fidgeting.

“Ja. Anders,” then his voice gets quiet, “I'm Anders.”

“So you do speak Common, brat mage? Good to know,” one of the Templars says with clear annoyance in his voice.

“So you're name is Anders?” Karl only now realizes as he helps the boy up, that behind his back in his shackled hands he’s white-knuckling a pillow. Holding on to as if it was his own heart.

“No...well, sure. Might as well be. Not like anyone here would be able to pronounce my real name anyways.” The boy, Anders, doesn't look like he cares much. Like changing his name isn't that big of a deal. Given what is happening to him, what has happened, in the scheme of things it probably isn't.

“Are you sure?” The Templars are back to gripping him, but he isn't lashing anymore, at least not as much. Karl turns his head, standing at the end of the dock as he watches them take him towards the gate.

“Yeah. Anders. Hmm. Just call me that.” Anders calls from the Templars hold.

“Alright then. Don’t go jumping into anymore lakes until you can swim. I'll see you about then. Anders.” The great door of Kinloch hold opens and there are even more Templars to meet them behind it.

“Thanks, Stranger.” Anders gets out before they drag him in and the door slams shut.

It's then that Karl realizes that he never told Anders his name, but Anders never told him his name either. Not really.

Karl feels the heat of the setting sun against his neck. It's almost time. The loud creak of the hold doors is deafening.

“Well, aren't you having a good week? Harrowed, saving lives, and is that a beard I see growing in? Should I start calling you Hero of Kinloch Hold? Women will be swooning as you pass if you keep this up. Or should I say men, by what I heard coming from the Library closet yesterday,” a woman's mocking whisper is in his ear then, and he see's a flash of red hair in the corner of his eye.

“Oh shut it, Flo.” Karl doesn't really think before he says it. He would feel bad if it was anyone else. But it isn't. It's her.

“Oh, Karl! Such harsh words. When did you start talking like that? Is this a Harrowed thing?” Flo's fake hurt voice is almost worse than her mocking. She steps in front of him, her hair tossing in the slight wind that seems to be nowhere else, but blowing in her hair. Frivolous use of magic. But it's not like they are going to be using it for anything else anytime soon, so he says nothing.

“No. It's not. It's a you thing. Bringing out the worst in me, as per usual.” The templars are shouting and opening the doors to shut everyone back in. The sun is setting and Karl thinks it's the first time he's seen the sun set in years.

“I think you mean the best,” the last light of the day is in her hair and her eyes and she walks into the door the Hold seems to swallow it all, “Hey Karl?”

“Yeah.” He turns his head and now they are in the hall and the firelight shows Flo’s face which has a look on it that he has rarely seen her show to anyone. Anyone, but him. She looking down and up and sideways, and running her fingers in her hair. Just the same look as when Willa was harrowed. And never came back.

“Why did you save that boy?” And she’s waiting for an answer. Karl has one, but it’s too dangerous. 

“I don’t know.” He lies.


End file.
